Hayden Paddon and the first electric rally car in the world!

Feature

Hayden Paddon and the first electric rally car in the world!

Words by Deni Archer

Hayden Paddon is not only pushing the limits of rally driving skill, he’s also pushing the limits of rally driving technology by developing the first electric rally driving vehicle in the world! We had the chance to meet him recently and learn all about this innovative project happening right here in New Zealand.

In a first not only for New Zealand but also for the world, the Paddon Rally Group (PRG) has developed an electric rally car! While EV technology already exists in several forms of motorsport, because of the range needed, rallying has always presented the biggest challenge to make this ever-evolving technology work. Rallying is the most demanding of motorsport environments, and developing an EV to suit it means combining performance, range and reliability into one winning package.

To take this idea from dream to reality, PRG recruited a group of the brightest young engineers and technicians to begin work in 2018. Their design concept focused on developing an EV platform that is not only fast and impressive, but one that can compete in a traditional rally format up against normal Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) competition.

The team was set up at the spectacular Highlands Motorsport Park giving them direct access to an international race circuit – the perfect testing and development facilities. A Hyundai Kona was chosen as the basis for developing a rally car. It was stripped to a bare shell and remodelled to lighten it as much as possible to accommodate the extra weight of the batteries.

The chassis and vehicle geometry took eight months of design and simulation to complete, before the build could start in confidence. This involved over 500 hours of work alone! After making the Jig, the strut towers and suspension points were inserted, and a whole new floor and battery mounting was built to allow for quick battery changes. Initially a smaller battery pack prototype was developed to allow the team to simulate power use. This was later replaced with

The car successfully runs and has already proven to be faster than our combustion rally car.”

a full-size rally battery which the vehicle now runs on.

PRG along with technical partner STARD has developed much of the systems and technology for their bespoke EV rally car.

Ten thousand hours, 18 months and a global pandemic later, PRG launched the completed EV rally car to the media and public in November 2020. But, Hayden

says, the car is still a work in progress. “The car successfully runs and has already proven to be faster than our combustion rally car. However, our initial prototype battery is just that – for testing. Our bigger battery, due late in 2021, will allow us to target a

full normal length rally, using some unique charging methods. We hope to complete a full-length rally competitively by mid-2022.”

As our EVolocity students will no doubt identify with, Hayden says taking the idea from concept to completion has been challenging. “There have been so many unknowns. We started with essentially a blank piece of paper, incorporating some key parts that were supplied from the other side of the world. So, it was always a bit of a risk around integrating all the pieces, hoping they would fit as designed once the parts arrived.”

The biggest challenge at present, he says, is around cooling and battery range. The team is also working through the efficiency of each and every component on the car with the painstaking attention to detail that is required for excellent engineering. “Ultimately we need to reduce the amount of energy the car uses,” Hayden explains, “which means going through every single moving part of the car to optimize it through trial and error.”

On the software side, PRG are only getting started on the torque vectoring and brake re-gen aspects of the vehicle. They’re also working with their European partner STARD to develop charger solutions that work

in a demanding rally environment. “This development process will be as long and as important as the build process,” says Hayden. “By the end of the year we hope to see the car officially competing in some shorter style motorsport events, before targeting some rallies next year. It’s a project the whole team are thriving on and one we are very excited about with the potential of this car – which, already in testing, is faster than our AP4.”

In the end, all the hard work will be worth it for the performance gains the team is already demonstrating are achievable with an electric rally vehicle.

Engineers working on the design of the EV in 2018

Preparing the Hyundai Kona shell for development Working on the EV in the PRG workshop

The EV rally car in action!

Watch

Hayden takes us on a tour of the EV rally car

Take a drive with Hayden in the EV at Rally Whangarei 2021!

Spotlight on Hayden Paddon

Hayden Paddon lives and breathes rally motorsport. And it’s no wonder since he’s been going to rallies since he was… well, pretty much since before he was born. His father took up motorsport at the age of 22 and Hayden was in the pits servicing for his father as soon as he was old enough to clean windows and help change tyres.

Hayden began driving dirt go-karts at the age of six. At the age of 10 he switched to tarmac racing (at KartSport Canterbury – a racing track EVolocity Canterbury students will know well!). He soon was at the top of the ranks and he hasn’t looked back since.

He’s come a long way since his first kart that was powered with a chainsaw engine. Hayden and the PRG team are breaking new ground

by developing the first completely electric rally car in the world!

Recently, we got the opportunity to ask Hayden a few questions:

Being so successful must mean you’ve overcome many challenges! What has been your biggest fail and what did you learn from it?

There are many failures in life, the key is to embrace them, learn from them and use them as tools to better yourself. Each and every time we have an accident in a race, we analyse it, determine what caused it and make changes; either to myself, to our pacenotes* or to the car to avoid it again. Not learning from mistakes would be the biggest mistake if not done. {*note: pacenotes are a commonly used method of accurately describing in extreme details a rallying route.} From the age of 12 until 25, I used to work on and fix the cars myself with family and friends. It was an important part in understanding how a car worked that has helped me become a better driver. Nowadays I’m more focused on driving and training as well as the marketing and business development side of the business.

What has been your most memorable event date and why?

It’s so hard to choose just one, but winning our first WRC rally, Rally Argentina, in 2016 was special. It was a lifelong dream to win at the very top level and in a final stage duel with a six-time world champion. I will never forget that day.

Hayden and his co-driver John Kennard

What advice would you like to offer young people considering a career in motorsports?

It’s a hugely exciting and rewarding industry, at the leading edge of technology development in an arena where innovation and out-of-thebox thinking is encouraged. Getting to compete against others, putting ‘man and machine’ up against the most brutal of elements, working together as a team towards common goals all while travelling the country or globe is really rewarding. It is truly the best sport in the world that also has a major role in the development of general road car technology - and ultimately people’s lives – in terms of both safety and performance.